Bergeron writes about local, state & national topics, as well as other matters of interest.

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No Place to Hide

Wednesday’s edition (Jan. 17, 2018) of the Courier News featured a guest article on its opinion page on how American civilians should prepare for a potential nuclear strike.

Yikes! Are you kidding me?

There is no way for civilians to logically prepare for survival following a massive nuclear strike. Photos depicting the WWII obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from two atomic bombs should have made that abundantly clear.

Yet Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor and author proposes exactly that.

He quotes a government agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as his authority, “While a nuclear detonation is unlikely, it would have devastating results and there would be limited time to take critical protection steps. . ..” and so on, and so on.

I also remember just as vividly, the Cuban Missile Crisis when President John F. Kennedy stood eye-ball to eye-ball with Russian Premier, Nikita Khrushchev:

Loaded with nuclear-tipped warheads, select B-52 bombers of the U.S. Strategic Air Command (SAC) were in the air circling outside of Russian air space.

The remainder were sitting on tarmacs of air fields everywhere in the nation, flight crews inside, engines warm, planes at the ready for takeoff at a moment’s notice.

Similarly, every U.S. ICBM location in the heartland had its ‘birds’ sitting at their silos, blast doors open, waiting to spread their deadly wings.

Simultaneously, under the world’s oceans, each American nuclear-powered submarine was strategically positioned, equipped with its own batch of nuclear poison ready for launch.

Not to be intimidated, the Russian military had its own nuclear arsenal dispersed and on station. Armageddon was as near as the command,

Go!

During the Cold War, Americans were constantly being reminded to be prepared in the event of a Russian strike. If you had the dough, you could build yourself a well-stocked underground shelter. If not?

And don’t forget the kids. If they find themselves at school, tell them to hide under their desks!

What else could a government say to its populace? – but the advice was unworkable, just as is the CDC’s today: In an all-out exchange of nuclear warheads between nations, there will be no place to hide. . . .

. . . . except, that is, for the chosen few of our elected officials in Washington, D.C. – those who will be whisked to their secret, underground modern-day Greenbriers. But what does one come back to when the underground hatches are opened?

There is only one solution: For mankind to live in peace.

Nonetheless, with all of man’s brilliant technological advances, none has yet found a way to fully implement that solution.

There are more than one Francis on this blue globe, but who is paying attention?